A Homeschool Day With High Schoolers

What I wished our homeschool days look like and what they actually look like are usually quite different. Every week I have some interruption that ruins my ideal plans. This week it is no different:

• Monday morning started with tired children and a lethargic mother following a three-day church camp.
• Tuesday included some work experience piano teaching for one of my children in a school in the middle of the day
• Wednesday was GP appointments for two children.

How do I get school done with all these interruptions?

It took a while but I’ve stopped feeling guilty when life interferes with my homeschool schedule. Whilst I do my best to try to make my plans work,  when they don’t  I do my best to steer things back towards my schedule as best I can.

Here is a day faithfully recorded complete with interruptions:

Monday:

My husband and oldest son were out the door to work and uni before 07:30.

I got up around 7:30, ate breakfast and had some tea and did some Bible study and journaling. I put a load of washing on.

My two youngest kids (13 and 15) slept in  till 9am. When they got up they mucked around for a while making breakfast, checking Instagram accounts and emailing a few friends.

By 10am school work was happening and I had done a couple of hours work on my business. The kids steadily worked through their workbox trolleys heard them testing each other on capital cities. They came in to me to ask me to hold a competition for them. I did!

They do most of their work without any assistance from me. Quite often I get asked to help with Math but today they didn’t need any. They are both high schoolers now.

Another load of washing goes out on the line – the kids help and I put away all the gazillion towels that were on the line after a weekend away.

My daughter gets me to do a What Do You Remember from her Apologia science book.

Around 1pm we make our own lunches.

After lunch we gather to do our read alouds for about an hour. I read Economics in One Easy Lesson, The Story of Christianity and Frankenstein. While I read my daughter draws and my son, who is still tired and sore from water skiing, listens. I ask questions as I read and ask for narrations as I go. I usually do some prompting to get them to tell me back what they have read.

By 3pm the kids have finished their work. I could have added Winston Grammar and Latin but we were all feeling a bit lazy – we’ll catch up on another day.

The two kids now practice their instruments. At 4pm I take one to drumming lessons. I then do a quick Aldi shop.  At 5.15pm  I take my daughter to choir and pick up some of my son’s friends who come over to play for a few hours.

I cook dinner. Chicken, basil, sour cream and pine nut pasta – a big favourite here.

I then collapse on the couch and watch the news and a show with my husband.

My son’s friends get picked up at 8, the girls come home from choir at 8.45. We have a chat for a while. All of us are in bed by 10pm.

2016